“Staying in a war zone and directly or indirectly taking part in military operations is not something that is in any way compatible with receiving disability benefits…”
European Union member states are either accidentally or carelessly funding ISIS fighters through welfare benefits. That’s right: taxpayer monies in the form of funded welfare benefits such as unemployment funds, disability pensions, and housing allowances are going to Islamic State militants.
Danish officials said this week that 29 citizens who were given $100,000 in public pension benefits because they were considered too ill or disabled to work fled to Syria to fight for the Islamic State. Denmark provides unemployed people up to $120 a day.
“It is a huge scandal that we disburse money from the welfare fund in Denmark for people who go to Syria,” said Troels Lund Poulsen, Denmark’s labor minister. “Staying in a war zone and directly or indirectly taking part in military operations is not something that is in any way compatible with receiving disability benefits.”
Denmark is not alone in this fiasco. Other EU member states are also inadvertently funding terrorism with taxpayer money.
In Sweden, it took eight months before welfare authorities cut benefits to a Swedish national who had joined the terror group in its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa. Michael Skramo, who fled in 2014 with his wife and four children to Syria, swore allegiance to the Islamic State, changed his name to Abdul Samad al- Swedi, and has appeared in propaganda videos posing with a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Over the eight months before Sweden cut off benefits, Sweden paid Skramo more than $5,000.
In Belgium, authorities concluded that several of the plotters in the Brussels and Paris terror attacks that killed 162 people in 2015 and 2016 were partly financed by Belgium’s social welfare system while they planned their atrocities. Philippe de Koster, director of the Belgian agency tasked with fighting money laundering and the financing of terrorism, said steps have since been taken to prevent it from happening again.
What are the steps taken? Those convicted of terrorism can no longer receive benefits while in jail? Really? Is that the strong action meant to halt the Belgium’s accidental funding of terrorism?
The French government has cut the social-welfare benefits of several hundred French citizens who have left the country to join jihadist groups. France is the largest source of Western fighters in Iraq and Syria, with an estimated 2,000 citizens changing their allegiance as of May last year, according to the Counter Extremism Project.
Britain is not immune to the issue, either. A local government council in Birmingham admitted in December that it erroneously paid almost $7,000 in housing benefits to a man who was fighting in Syria for the Islamic State. Anouar Haddouchi used the money to fund his journey to join the group.
In September, radical Islamic cleric Anjem Choudary, jailed for terrorist activities, urged followers to claim “jihad seeker’s allowance” a reference to Britain’s welfare system. His phrase echoes a manual released by the militant group in 2015. How to Survive in the West: A Mujahid Guide advises that “if you can claim extra benefits from a government, then do so.”
British authorities estimate that 850 citizens have traveled to Iraq and Syria to fight for radical groups.
“Britain is just not up to speed with this,” warned Anthony Glees, who runs the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham. “One can assume that people who want to blow us up are entirely relaxed about taking as much money as they can from the British government.”
How did the governments of these countries not see this was going to be a problem? With the open borders of the EU and the refugees flooding into the area, it only stands to reason that some would be ISIS fighters, that some would send their benefits back to their country, and the ISIS-inspired terrorists there. Others would become radicalized and use the government handouts to fund their terrorist actions. This is common sense, and the dangers should have been plain as day.
Jon Harris is an OpsLens contributor and former Army NCO, civilian law enforcement officer, and defense contractor with over 30 years in the law enforcement community. He holds a B.S. in Government and Politics and an M.S. in Criminal Justice.
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